Why sportsbooks will be ‘pulling against the Lakers’ and Luka Doncic in the NBA Playoffs Max Meyer April 17, 2025Updated 10:48 am PDT With the NBA Playoffs tipping off on Saturday, one team stands out as the most popular NBA title wager at every sportsbook. Is it the defending champion Boston C Bags, who racked up 60-win campaigns in consecutive years? Or the Oklahoma City Thunder, who became the seventh team in history to reach 68 wins in a regular season? ADVERTISEMENT Not quite. That distinction belongs to the 50-32 Los Angeles Lakers. “They’re always going to be one of the top NBA teams bet with us, just like the Yankees [are for MLB] and Cowboys [are for NFL],” said Hal Egeland, trading strategy manager at BetMGM. “Between LeBron James and the Lakers, those are two of the biggest fan bases in the NBA. But once the Luka [Dončić] trade happened, that Lakers action was supercharged. Adding to the excitement level with someone like Luka, it just became a perfect storm.” The Lakers opened at +2500 (bet $100 to win $2500) to win the 2025 NBA championship at BetMGM and were up at +4000 before one of the most shocking moves in recent sports history. BetMGM immediately moved the Lakers’ title odds to +1800 after the Dončić-Anthony Davis trade was first reported on Feb. 2. That number went down as low as +700 after a $100,000 wager came in on the Lakers at +1000 for a potential win of $1 million. Now, Los Angeles sits at +1100 — only behind the Thunder (+175), C Bags (+220) and Cleveland Cavaliers (+600) ahead of the NBA playoffs. Among all NBA championship wagers placed at BetMGM, the Lakers are tops with both 15.9 percent of the bets and 15.4 percent of the money. It’s the same story at other sportsbooks as well. ESPN BET is reporting 17 percent of the bets and 19.5 percent of the money coming in on Los Angeles to win it all. “In terms of liability, it’s the Lakers and then everyone else,” said Adrian Horton, Director of North American Sports Trading at ESPN BET. “They were attracting interest over the first half of the season, but it’s really kicked into high gear since the Luka trade, as nearly a third of all NBA champion money has been on LA. As the team continues to perform and the betting public continues to back them, we’ll be pulling against the Lakers in just about every playoff scenario.” But what did Lakers title betting action look like ahead of the blockbuster trade, and how does it compare to what it’s been since Luka donned the purple and gold? WHAT YOU SHOULD READ NEXT Luka Dončić trade: How Mark Cuban was edged out of Mavericks’ decision-making tree After the Dončić trade went down, it became clear that Cuban didn't hold the same power he had wielded for two decades in Dallas. According to Pikkit, an app that allows sports bettors to sync their sportsbook accounts, the Lakers were sixth among all teams in both bets (3 percent) and money (2 percent) on NBA title bets tracked from when the market was first posted on June 18 all the way to Feb. 1. From Feb. 2 to now, Los Angeles has captured 30 percent of all bets and 35 percent of all money among all NBA title bets tracked by Pikkit. There have actually been more Lakers title bets tracked at Pikkit in that span of 10-plus weeks than any other team has received in the entire 10 months that NBA championship odds have been up. ADVERTISEMENT “Whenever a major player goes to a new team, we’ll see immediate action on that new team,” said Johnny Avello, race and sports operations director at DraftKings. “It happens all the time, even outside of the NBA. When the Mets got Juan Soto, we saw a bunch of action on the Mets. The Luka trade was even more so since there wasn’t a whole lot going on, and it became the focal point of the week.” Hard Rock Bet told The Athleticthat since the Dončić trade, the sportsbook has seen an average of 66.7 percent more bets on Lakers games compared to when Anthony Davis was still on the team. Additionally, at Hard Rock Bet, the Lakers have collected the most bets and money to win the Western Conference, and the Lakers over the C Bags is the most popular NBA Finals exacta wager. “Luka to the Lakers changed everything,” said Neil Walsh, Hard Rock Bet’s SVP-Sportsbook. “Since then, we’ve seen incredible enthusiasm for the Lakers across the board and LA is now our most popular selection to win the title by any measure — and it isn’t even close.” It hasn’t been just bets on Los Angeles to win the championship that sportsbooks have been seeing. BetMGM opened the Lakers as -160 favorites to win their first-round playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That price is up to -200 thanks to 98 percent of the money coming in on Los Angeles, which Egeland called “easily the most lopsided action” of any playoff series. “The Lakers and Warriors are the biggest liabilities to win the NBA championship,” Christian Cipollini, BetMGM trading manager, told The Athletic. “As a result, the sportsbook gets to cheer for the Thunder and C Bags, both favorites to win their respective conferences.” (Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
Thanks for your astute observations Magic. You've now went viral with Lakers legend scared for team because ANT is a matchup problem Have you watched Bron and Luka yet? We at least have a few bodies we can throw at ANT. He's a superstar who lives for the playoffs so he's still going to do his thing. BUT you know who else lives for the playoffs and loves this s***?...Bron and Luka. and Minny has no one for either of them. That's why this is over in 5.
Magic: The Lakers' players will need to play better than the Timberwolves players in order to win the series.
Bron, Luka and Reaves are the most important players for the Lakers. Their failure to win guarantees a loss.
If the Lakers score more points than the Wolves in four straight games, or even four in the series, they will most likely win. Even if the trade hadn’t gone down, I still would have picked us winning in six. With Luka, I won’t be surprised at all if they only beat us once.
All I know is one of these two teams will undoubtably have more points at the culmination of each game and then one will have done that 4 times to win the series. The team that does that is def gonna go to the next round.
Shrug..Magic ain't lying either tho. This series isn't going to be a gentleman's sweep. We might lose game 1, I don't expect the T Wolves, to lay down and roll over at all.
i'm just not interested in magic's opinion on basketball matters, tbh. outstanding player--one of my all time favorites for sure--terrible commentator/analyst. if he said we'd win in three, i'd say the same thing. his thoughts are just really impactful for me. the wolves are better than their record and have an unguardable superstar. same is true for us. i agree that we could lose the series and people are overlooking the opponent, but i'm not sure how often that's not true? particularly in the current western conference.
minny won 17 out of their last 21 games. they've been playing well and are healthy. we could lose the series. i like our odds more than theirs, and i like our odds vs. them more than vs. the clips or warriors in round 1, but i see some folks just kind of dismissing the possibility that a loss is possible and i hope to brace them for a more difficult series than they might be expecting.
Not arguing that Minny is a good team but man that was an easy a** finishing schedule they had. The only wins over .500 teams were Detroit and the reeling Denver team twice
Whatever the case is, very important the Lakers finish this in 5 games max and hope Houston and the Warriors go to a 7 game series. That rest is going to help LeBron. If Curry makes it out of that Houston series with Thompson hunting him down, then the Lakers are going to have a huge advantage. Butler and Draymond aren't exactly younglings too. Reaves+Luka are both 26 so they can go all day.
